A personal message to B31 Voices readers from Richard Burden MP following his re-election

Richard Burden MP “First of all, I want to say thank you to the people of Birmingham Northfield constituency for putting their trust in me and re-electing me as their MP with an increased majority.

“Theresa May called the election because she thought it was in the interests of the Conservative Party not because it was in the interests of the country. She took it for granted that she would win by a landslide and that the British people would give her a blank cheque to do as she pleased for the next five years. She was comprehensively proved wrong. The result in Northfield and in so many other constituencies showed that people will not be taken for granted. They want local MPs fighting their corner on the national stage, not a Parliament full of cheerleaders for the Prime Minister.

“The election also brought out clear diving lines between a Labour manifesto founded on hope and committed to invest in health , education and the Police, and a Conservative manifesto which lacked vision, offered continued neglect of our public services and was patently unfair in proposals like the dementia tax.

“The Conservative way was comprehensively rejected in Northfield and it cannot command majority support in the country as a whole either. The result is that Theresa May is left without authority in her own party, presiding over an unstable minority Government, propped up by the DUP. Britain deserves better than that. So Labour will be holding the Tories to account in the coming months and we will be ready to offer ourselves as an alternative Government whenever the Conservatives face up to reality and call another General Election.”